American Literary Studies

Research Access and Use: Materials in the Department of Special Collections
are non-circulating and must be used in the Special Collections' Reading Room
in the Cecil H. Green Library. The Reading Room is open 10:00am to 5:00pm Monday
through Friday. Photocopies, photographs, and microfilm can be made of some
materials in the collections. For more information about the collections and
access policies, please contact Special Collections by telephone at (650) 725-1022,
by electronic mail at speccollref@stanford.edu or by regular mail at the Department
of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California
94305-6004.

Content: This archive comprises the very substantial literary
papers 1945-1995 of E. V. Griffith, poet and editor, with material from
virtually every poet of the American avant-garde. Materials from Griffith's
years issuing distinguished small magazines in the second half of the century:
Sheaf, Hearse, Hearse Chapbooks, Coffin, and Poetry Now, including
manuscripts, correspondence, printed matter, photographs. In addition to
original manuscripts by many significant authors, these papers also present
critical insight into the world of small magazines and the indispensable
literary underground mid century and later.

Publications: Complete runs of Poetry Now, over 5,200 individual
manuscripts of poems and translations, and Hearse Press Chapbooks,
including Charles Bukowski's Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail, as well
as large publication runs of Sheaf and Hearse, comprising
447 individual manuscripts. Also, Hearse Press Broadside #1, Bukowski's
His Wife, the Painter. Finally, there are 80 books, magazines, and
broadsides.

Correspondence: Over 5,200 items of correspondence to Mr. Griffith from
John Balaban, Charles Bukowski, Rita Dove, Kimon Friar, Donald Hall, X.
J. Kennedy, Robert Peters, Eugene Ruggles, Brian Swann, Harold Witt, and
several hundred more.Not only are there several hundred poets, but the contributions
are in-depth. Manuscripts and correspondence typically number from half
a dozen to several dozen pieces per writer.

Recorded interviews: Conversations with authors including Tom McGrath,
Ann Stanford, John Haines, William Saroyan, Karl Shapiro, William Stafford,
others.

Photographs: There are more than 1000 photographs of poets,
all identified.

Finding Guides: The collection is currently
unprocessed and uncataloged. However, for scholars wishing to get
a sense of what is in the collection, preliminary inventories are viewable here: